FAIRMONT – Robert Tinnell doesn’t how this movie is going to end, but he’s loving the story so far, he said.
“As usual, I went into this with ‘a big plan,’” he said, chuckling. “Which meant I had no plan at all.”
Tinnell, a movie-obsessed Marion County native, lit out for Los Angeles and film school in the early 1980s, intent on becoming the next Steven Spielberg.
Instead, he claimed a niche of his own in the industry, directing MTV videos while making a good living in advertising.
He got married, became the father of two kids and moved back to the Mountain State in the early 2000s, where he reinvented himself as the best-selling author of a spate of best-selling graphic novels.
One of them was “The Feast of the Seven Fishes,” a fictionalized take of his boisterous Italian-American family in real-life Greentown, a coal camp that held on in the heart of tiny Rivesville, which is around 15 miles from Morgantown in Marion County.
That book morphed into a movie mainly shot in the above locale.
To Tinnell’s eternal amazement, it’s now required holiday viewing in households from Marion County to Marin County.
The rom-com got him back on the road to filmmaking.
He and brother Jeff founded Allegheny Image Factory in Fairmont, a production house that put out two of the top four films currently trending on Netflix.
“Gaslit by My Husband: The Morgan Metzer Story,” crested as the No. 1 movie on streaming network this week.
It stars Jana Kramer and Austin Nichols and is based on the true story of Metzer, who endured domestic abuse and psychological manipulation in her marriage before she escaped by divorce.
“The Bad Guardian” this week climbed to the No. 4 ranking on the platform.
Starring Melissa Joan Hart and La La Anthony, the film inspired by real-life cases looks at the plight of vulnerable seniors who can be easily exploited while chronicling the story of a daughter fighting for her father, a victim of such circumstance.
As with “Feast,” north-central West Virginia served as the backdrop for those two films also.
They were shot in Fairmont and Mannington in Marion County, along with the Harrison County community of Shinnston.
“They’re good stories,” Tinnell said.
Tinnell was proud to craft the movies in the place where he and Jeff grew up, he said.
He liked that old friends and new ones too appeared in scenes as extras while also hiring on to help with the production.
He appreciated that local hotels, restaurants and small businesses got their close-ups, too.
“It’s like, ‘What a long strange trip it’s been,’” Tinnell said, quoting The Grateful Dead to recount his creative odyssey as a storyteller over four decades now.
“We’re so proud of what this means for West Virginia’s profile with in the film industry,” he said.
In the meantime, he said, look for more Allegheny Image productions with a Mountain State stamp.
“We want to celebrate the place that raised us.”
